Love keeps you fresh
Apr 29, 2009
<b>Grain of science</b><br>LOVE keeps the brain as young and vibrant as that of a teenager. Researchers led by Bianca Acevedo at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York wanted to know if romantic love — or at least the brain activity it tri
Grain of science
LOVE keeps the brain as young and vibrant as that of a teenager. Researchers led by Bianca Acevedo at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York wanted to know if romantic love — or at least the brain activity it triggers — could last in a long-term relationship. To everyone’s relief, the answer is yes.
They carried out a brain imaging study on brain activity and confirmed that people can be madly in love with each other, even after two decades of marriage.
The group presented its results last November at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The new data suggests that people who have been madly in love for an average of 21 years maintain activation in a brain region associated with early-stage love.
Most couples who have been together for many years tend to experience a change from a frenetic, obsessive love to something more subdued and comfortable, says study co-author Lucy Brown of Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
But even with this state, the researchers noticed that the ventral tegmental brain area, (which associated with the intense, burning stages of early love), can still be active after 20 years of being in a relationship.
This activity, they revealed, contributed to the brain health and delay of age-related inconveniences on the brain which result from less activity and being docile.
LOVE keeps the brain as young and vibrant as that of a teenager. Researchers led by Bianca Acevedo at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York wanted to know if romantic love — or at least the brain activity it triggers — could last in a long-term relationship. To everyone’s relief, the answer is yes.
They carried out a brain imaging study on brain activity and confirmed that people can be madly in love with each other, even after two decades of marriage.
The group presented its results last November at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The new data suggests that people who have been madly in love for an average of 21 years maintain activation in a brain region associated with early-stage love.
Most couples who have been together for many years tend to experience a change from a frenetic, obsessive love to something more subdued and comfortable, says study co-author Lucy Brown of Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
But even with this state, the researchers noticed that the ventral tegmental brain area, (which associated with the intense, burning stages of early love), can still be active after 20 years of being in a relationship.
This activity, they revealed, contributed to the brain health and delay of age-related inconveniences on the brain which result from less activity and being docile.